


What's In A Name?

by navaan



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Aftermath, Epilogue, F/M, Family, Ficlet, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-01
Updated: 2012-08-01
Packaged: 2017-11-11 05:07:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/474841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry and Ginny contemplate the naming of their first child. </p>
<p>Mostly epilouge compliant - apart from one small detail.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What's In A Name?

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by something [](http://melonbaellchen.livejournal.com/profile)[**melonbaellchen**](http://melonbaellchen.livejournal.com/) said during a RL conversation. I know not everything is going your way at the moment. So this is for you.  
>  And a big thank you to my beta reader [](http://proxypromethea.livejournal.com/profile)[**proxypromethea**](http://proxypromethea.livejournal.com/). Even your smallest insights are really, really helpful! Thank you! (All remaining mistakes are mine, of course.)

“So what are we going to call him?” Ginny was cradling the baby to her chest, smiling up at her husband from her St. Mungo's hospital bed. They had prepared a list of names, had disagreed on some, had changed their minds a few times, and yet they had never made the final decision. And then there had been those names they had never really talked about, avoiding the issue on purpose.

Ginny smiled up at him hesitantly. “What should we call him?”

He reached out a hand to stroke the babies soft cheek. Incredible to think that they were parents now, that this new little life would depend on them. He'd waited for this moment for nine month and still he didn't feel prepared now. The only thing he knew was that he wanted to do this _right_.

Beside him Ginny sighed softly. Exhausted, nervous, but happy, smiling tiredly. “We could call him Sirius or James. Or even Albus, you know?” she whispered. “All of them are good names and they would mean something to us.”

Harry sat down beside her on the bed, looking down at his wife and son with a soft smile on his lips.

“I know. We could also call him Fred,” he said quietly.

To Ginny that didn’t sound as if this would be his first choice. It wasn't phrased like it, but it was a question. Harry too wanted to know if that was what she really wanted. Ginny shook her head and smiled at him. “Don’t you think George and Angelina haven’t thought of that one, yet?”

“Yeah, right.” Harry chuckled and then looked at her. “So? How about David or Richard or John?”

The way he said it was casual, but Ginny could tell that he had given it some thought. “David, huh? Not exactly a magical name but I like it.” She smiled at the baby again and then looked up at her husband who was watching them with a soft, wistful expression. “Are you sure about it? I wouldn’t even mind naming him after Snape, if it was what you really wanted. After all, you wouldn’t be here if it hadn’t been for him.” She was careful to keep her voice light. The war had cost all of them too much to ever become a light topic of conversation. Harry would never entirely escape his role in all of it, even if sometimes that was all he really wanted.

“I’m sure he’d have liked that,” he said with a scrunched up nose. “Severus Potter. If he were still alive he'd probably come after me for calling a Potter child after him.” He laughed and his eyes were sparkling with mirth. “He’ll probably find a way to come back as a ghost and haunt us for the rest of our lives if we really did it.” He bent forward to take a look at their peacefully sleeping son.

She didn’t bother to suppress a smile at the thought of Professor Snape haunting them. “If he wanted to haunt us, Harry, he’d have done so right away, don't you think? He’d have found reasons, I’m sure.”

Harry leaned forward even further to place a light kiss on her cheek. “You’re right, of course.” They shared a laugh, careful not to wake the baby in her arms, and she made a little room on the bed, so he could move up beside her. He leaned against the headboard and slung an arm around her. She reached up with one hand to slide her fingers against his. They spent a moment of happy silence, both contemplating the little life they had brought into the world.

“David, then?” she asked after a moment. “You’re really sure, you don’t want to name him after...?”

“Did you know anyone named David who died?”

“No.”

“Then I’m sure,” Harry answered her. “They’ll be remembered. We’ll never forget them and we’ll tell him all about the brave and wonderful people who died to make the world a place worth living. But he’ll have the name Potter to live up to and I think that’s more than enough for a child to bear. It was certainly too much for me at times. He doesn’t need another legacy to be put on his shoulders. Let’s give him a clean slate, so he can be who he wants to be.”

She looked down at her son, caught between her own hopes for his future and memories of growing up, watching Harry struggle with all the expectation and sometimes defamation he’d had to live with. Of course, there had been Voldemort and the prophecy and Harry’s fame as the Boy Who Lived. Her children would hopefully have the chance to grow up in a world that wasn’t on the verge of war. But then again, Harry was still famous. His name would forever be connected with the war and rebuilding of Wizzarding Britain.

She let her head fall against his shoulder. “You’re right, of course,” she echoed his words from a few minutes ago. “David it is.”  
  



End file.
